It is widely acknowledged that birds are very useful indicators of biodiversity and the state of the environment. This is due to several reasons: birds occur in all habitats, often reflect trends in other animals and plants, and are sensitive to environmental change....

For the past several years, the Independence Day fishing competition at the end of September has been held in the Okavango Panhandle, coinciding with the peak breeding time for the Near Threatened African Skimmer. This species nests on exposed sandbanks along the Okavango River, and the presence of a large number of fishermen and their boats has had a negative impact on its breeding success.

The barren, inhospitable salt flats of Botswana’s Makgadikgadi Pans might hardly seem like a conservation hotspot, but its designation as an Important Bird Area gives one an inkling that there is more to the area than meets the eye. Indeed, it is one of only four breeding sites for the Lesser Flamingo in Africa – as well as providing a haven for 30 other globally and nationally important birds.

Dr Graham McCulloch has been monitoring the globally threatened Lesser Flamingo in the Makgadikgadi Pans (Botswana) for over a decade, and one of the questions still unanswered is whether there is any link between the Southern and East African populations; if this were the case, it would have important implications for the conservation of the species...

BirdLife Botswana (BirdLife Partner) in collaboration with Department of Wildlife and National Parks celebrated World Migratory Bird Day with more than five hundred school children, forty-eight teachers and over fifty Mogobane community members on Saturday 29th May 2010 at Mogobane village kgotla. The theme for the celebration was Migratory Birds: Promoting Cultural Diversity in Botswana.